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July 23, 2003

10 greatest american wimmen

I kept my list to ten because, quite frankly, I find it difficult to make a list of 20 Great American Wimmen. I don't mean that in a chauvanistic way, either. Wimmen just haven't been allowed to participate in the moving and shaking of the nation as long as men have. I believe my picks illustrate that fact clearly.

Here are mine, in no order of importance. They are in order of how they popped into my head.

2) Annie Oakley. The original American Tomboy. Good with a gun and fit for a Wild West show. Ya gotta LOVE that!

3) Lucille Ball. An American Icon. "Lucy" entertained generations. I'll never forget her in the pie factory.

4) Clara Barton. She was an angel on the battlefield and founded the American Red Cross. 'Nough said.

5) Sandra Day O'Connor. The first female Supreme Court Justice. I don't believe that she's always been a great judge, but she beats the shit out of Ruth Bader-Ginsberg.

6) Sally Ride. The first female astronaut. Plus, you just have to love that name. Ride, Sally, ride!

7) Billie Jean King. A true, fire-breathing champion. She sat Bobby Riggs right on his big-mouthed ass. I LIKE strong wimmen.

8) Amelia Earhart. Wimmen weren't supposed to do what she did. She did it anyway. The fact that she crashed and died on an attempt to circumnavigate the globe does not change my mind about her. That woman had BALLS.

9) Babe Diedricksen. The best female athlete who ever lived, period. That is one amazing woman.

10) (This is a tie) Rosa Parks, because I've always admired people who refused to take shit and Katherine Hepburn, because she didn't take any shit, either. I like UNCONVENTIONAL wimmen, too.

Okay, there they are. My picks.

Now I need to go check my email and comments to see how many people agreed with me.

I have to disagree with you on Billie Jean King. Bobby Riggs wasn't exactly playing the game to win. He was running around putting on silly costumes and acting the fool. For a tennis player Riggs was was an OLD man in 1973. He won his first pro match sometime in the late 1930's. Riggs was in his late fifties and King was in her twenties at the time. I still think it was an elaborate setup by the women's libbers of the time. Let Riggs win the first set and then have the much younger and faster King beat him. If you want to answer the question today a much better match up might be Pete Sampras or whoever the top seed male is now, playing against one of the Williams sisters or Jennifer Capriati.

This is a little late, but I just thought of Commodore Grace Hopper, USN, the originator of Cobol. She is also remembered for a great line while testifying before a congressional committee: "A ship in port is safe, but that's not what ships are for."

Excuse me? How many of these women made the world a better place for someone other than themselves? I MIGHT make an exception for Ms. Rice, but the historical jury is still out and won't be coming in for a decade or so.

Like I said, when compared to crushing Communism nearly everything pales in comparison. And I would *DEARLY* love for someone to explain to me how ANY professional athlete makes anything better for the world as a whole. Sure, everybody loves a winner, but no physical accomplishment compares to . . . oh, say wiping out polio.

Amelia Earhart? Oh, yeah! Flying a plane is a unique skill nobody else could do. Women's suffrage? I have a two word argument against that : Bill Clinton.

Better go back to the drawing board and redefine "greatest". What I have seen so far doesn't merit "so-so" in my book.

I am so with you on Condi Rice, and most of the others. To that I might add St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, a Maryland woman who was widowed at a young age and left with several small children. She went to work in the archdiocese of Baltimore, and with the help of the bishop at the time became a sister of and established the American wing of the Daughters of Charity. As the leader of this order of nuns, she established schools and hospitals all over the United States which provided care to poor and wealthy alike.

The hospital where I work was established in the 19th century by sisters of her order who came to Indianapolis with $37.44. St. Vincent Hospital is now listed in the USNews as #47 nationally for cardiac care and #32 for neurological care. Not bad for a group of east coast nuns with less than $40 between them.

She is one of the first American saints, and her legacy lives on in cities and small towns all over this country. She started her order in poverty and died in poverty, never taking personal profit from any of the hospitals or schools that were founded by her order. This was a great lady.